Rapidly Growing Story

As Thanksgiving is closing in and as the semester is nearing its conclusion, I feel pressure to get my project completed. I didn't write as rapidly as I should have. I also could not stick to 3 hours a day rule for the month of November. Constant need to check back to sources to confirm some part of the story made the writing slow. There were times when I sat to write but ended up spending two hours looking for news articles and videos to confirm that I was writing validated experience of the quake. Even though I'm writing a fiction, I'm basing it on the reality. Therefore, I can't make up my own reality on entirety. For example, Nepal's earthquake measured 7.9 in Richter Scale. I can't write in my story that it was 8.9. Nor can fabricate the cases of devastation. It's all fact and the world knows it. Therefore, writing rapidly has not been quite possible. Still I'm devoting hours and hours into it and I'm quite happy that I've been so much immersed into this project.

Here I present some additional excerpts from my manuscript:

....The news of persons rescued alive from crumbled buildings keeps spreading. This adds hope in me. There do exist the cases of miraculous survivals.

I have to go find my girls, wherever they are, in whatever situation they are. But this is an alien land. I’m a foreigner. I don’t know their language. I don’t know the geography. I need a guide. I need a pathfinder.  

I call Binod. He says he can’t go because “hills are falling; paths are blocked; hotels are closed; and quake has been recurring.”

I call a few other contacts and ask if they can find a Nepali guide for me. They ask for an hour. I start packing things up. If I find nobody, I’ll go alone. I can’t sit here in safety when my sweethearts’ fates are unknown.  I’m the one who is responsible for their safeguarding.

An hour…..another powerful jolt is felt on the earth. The contacts call back saying, they are trying but nobody is willing to go. Everybody is scared. Some of the guides have died and others have been injured. Many have lost their own near and dear ones. The death toll has already counted more than 8000. And it’s growing.

At a point I feel anger. I feel anger on myself, for not being able to protect my wife and daughter, for not taking care of them, for letting them on their own in this alien land. My personal ambition of scaling Mount Everest was the reason I abandoned them. If I had been together with them, we would have survived together or died together.

And I feel anger on this alien land. This land has eluded my dreams and looted my happiness. What a curse this land is! If my wife and daughter don’t turn in alright, I can’t forgive this country. These feelings, I know, are irrational but I was not this vulnerable back home. I never felt this helpless in the United States.

Natural disasters can’t be stopped, fine, but the Himalayan region was already known as one of the most tectonically unstable regions of the world. A major quake would hit any moment. Yet they didn’t do anything about houses. They let the people build weak structures. They didn’t prepare for a disaster. They let poverty rule here. Or whatever.

And all of a sudden, I receive a call from the embassy. A female voice says, “It turns out, your wife and your daughter were not in the Langtang valley when the earthquake hit. Your daughter had suffered from sudden attack  of altitude sickness and in the evening of April 24, she was brought to Kathmandu in a helicopter. Your wife accompanied her.”

WHAT?

Is it true?

The voice says, “Yes. This is a confirmed news. Your daughter was then taken to B&B Hospital. After some care in hospital, she improved significantly and both of them were taken to Hyatt Hotel, which is near Bauddha Stupa.”

That is all the information that they have.

All of the sudden, my hope resurges. The US embassy offers me a ride to Hyatt. Yes, indeed, Linda and Jessica stayed in one of the suites at Hyatt on the night before the quake. However, they had checked out early in the morning.

Now, that’s absurd. Where might have they gone after that?

However, one of the Hyatt staffs tell us this: “Linda had the plan to fly back to Langtang Valley and continue her trek. Jessica, on the other hand, was to stay in Kathmandu. Before the two parted, they wanted to visit a church and pray. They exited in one of our shuttle cabs.”

The staff looks up in the computer and makes a few calls and says, “ Jessica and Linda were dropped off at Kapan. There’s a famous church in a seven storied building. They probably attended there.”  

We drive back to the embassy. They say they need this vehicle for some more urgent matter. But that’s fine because I have the bicycle. However, fortunately, the embassy staff offers to send a Nepali guide with me.

The Nepali guide, named Nabin, is ready on his bicycle. I ask how old he is. He says he is 20. I ask if his family is safe. He says, “Nobody is safe in this city”, then adds, “My house is in one of the villages in Gorkha, near the epicenter of the April 25 quake. My grandmother, who was 80, died when our house there crumbled. One of my aunts with her 6 months baby was rescued. The aunt is critically injured but she covered the infant with her body and saved him.”

“What about uncle?”

Nabin says, “He works in Qatar, like millions of Nepalese. He is probably coming to Nepal, for last rituals of grandmother.”

“What about your parents?”

“My mom has gone to the village. I have no dad. He used to be a soldier. He got killed during Maoist war. I was very small at that time.”

“Do you have any siblings?”

“Yes I do. In Nepal, usually everyone has at least one sibling. I’ve got two sisters.”

“Do you have house in Kathmandu?”

He says, “No, we have rented two small rooms. But the house is now fractured. It’s not safe to live there. But we can’t find any rooms to rent at this time. We’re living under tent.”

I would want to ask more questions. But then, I have my own problems.

He asks, “Was there some relative of your in that Church?”

I say, “Probably.”

He says, “But I think there were no survivors in that building.”

“What? The church  collapsed?”

He says, “I’m sorry. But many churches have collapsed throughout the city. Because Saturday is the national holiday in Nepal, Christians meet and pray on Saturdays. Christians were praying in churches when the earthquake hit. Maybe a thousand, I don’t know.”

My heart throbs. I ask, “No survivors?”

He says, “I’m sorry, but this particular church was in fifth or sixth storey of a seven storied building. I don’t have the exact information. The building was the tallest in the neighborhood.”

I feel tornado within me.

He says, “But I don’t think any foreigners were killed there.”

I say, “My wife and daughter were in the church.”

He says, “But I don’t know. We’ve almost arrived. We can talk to the locals.”

We arrive at the site. There is a huge, I mean very huge, pile of rubble. I ask, “Nabin, how many died in this building?”

He says, “I’m not sure. Maybe 100. Maybe more. Or less. I don’t know. But I’m sure many died, especially in the church. This is a popular church in the area.”

There is a row of tents a few minutes away. As we walk towards the tents, a woman with a three kids following her, approaches. She says, “Hello sir. Namaste.”

I say, “Namaste.”

She asks Nabin something in Nepali. Nabin answers to her and turns to me, “She’s asking if you are here to donate them something.”

I look at the woman. She looks dirty. Her kids look dirtier. She looks at me and smiles.

Nabin says, “I’m sorry but people normally see foreigners as people who are able and willing to give them something….maybe because the government is doing nothing to them in this time of disaster. Many things have fallen apart. Maybe even hope has fallen apart. We are, you know, a fallen nation.”

How to respond? What a quagmire!

As Nabin explains to her something, she looks at me with sympathy. Then she takes us to the tented area where dozens of people surround us out of nowhere.

Again how to respond at that situation?

As Nabin talks to some people, one teenage girl comes forward and says, “Sir, I was in the church when the earthquake happened. But I didn’t really notice any foreigners. But again, there were many people in the church and we can’t see all. Maybe your family were there at the time, or maybe not.”

If this girl was there and she survived, then I was assured that some people made it. I ask, “Were there more survivors?”

She says, “Yes there were.”

I sit, grab her gently, look at her on her eyes, and ask, “Can you explain me what happened there?”

She says, “Yes, it was  horrific. It was very frightening”, she tries to recall, “We were praying when we felt the vibrations on the floor. When the vibration grew, I opened my eyes. I saw people in the left and right. They were still closing their eyes. I looked at the father, who looked back at me, and gestured to close my eyes. But all of the sudden, the cracking sounds and screams from the whole neighborhood were heard. The trembling became violent. And I stood up. Others stood up too. Everyone was scared.

- Sanjay Chhetri

For Shaken Earth & Fallen Marine

[Images extracted from Google Images